[Vasuki]

Really a sad situation faced by a customer.

This particular lady booked for Slavia with Malayalam Motors, Trivandrum as per instructions passed on by Skoda customer care. She was mentioned a 45-day waiting period on payment of booking amount of Rs.25000\- on April 2022. In between the dealership mentioned to the customer to pay additional funds of Rs.5 Lakhs so that they can expedite her booking. So she arranged another 3 lakhs. Now comes the interesting part, she had applied for a loan with HDFC bank for 8 lakhs which was approved immediately and disbursed by the bank directly to the dealer without her explicit consent. Now the crux is that the dealership has winded up and she is left high & dry. The response from Skoda initially was that they will take the matter with the dealer and resolve this issue.

Fed up, the customer approached civil court, and now Skoda has taken the stand that they have not received any amount from the dealer, and the dealership was canceled on 22nd July 2022. It is interesting to note that even on 2nd September 2022 Skoda sent a mail to the customer mentioning they would resolve the matter as soon as possible. The customer has already lost about 14 lakhs(3.25 lakhs as initial payment, 8 lakhs loan & about 2 lakhs paid as EMI till now). Really pathetic, common man has no options.

@Mods : can we help in highlighting this issue with Skoda management?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KQkVFr4ncYE

[LakeWalker]

Thank you for posting this thread. I have just watched the video and was about to post about this but then I thought let me see if someone else have made a post.

It is also sad that she listened and believed whatever the Skoda and dealership said because she wanted the car as soon as possible to fulfill the wish of her dying mother. Now it's been almost 2 years since her mother passed away due to cancer. Neither Skoda nor the dealership Malayalam Motors (now non-existent) are doing anything.

Also note that Malayalam Group has other businesses and they have a lot of Tata Motors dealerships as well. So beware of this fraud company.

Even after all this Skoda's regional manager had the audacity to tell her to book the car from a new dealership and pay the full price, and deal with her 16 lakhs stuck with Skoda dealership and bank later!

[Nithesh_M]

Skoda 2.0 just meant they'll continue their same shoddy treatment of customers in version 2.0.

My wife narrated the whole story right now and I was wondering why nobody on Teambhp reported it.

Woman couldn't show her car to her mom. Is losing money in lakhs due to brand authorized dealer swindling it and brand argues in court that it can do nothing about it?

[Rajjaiswal92]

Skoda and their dealerships are pathetic, i can fully understand what she must be going through, but not even a bit surprised.
Skoda and their dealership were involved in a major RTO scam in my city as well, they somehow end up taking no responsibility at all.
The court will most likely go after the dealership, the civil suit will drag on for years but most likely end up in her favour.

[the.dogfather]

Malayalam Skoda had been a decent service center while they were functional. My friend was a regular there and they were one of the better service centers as compared to Skoda/VW reputation. When Malayalam Skoda shut down and PPS took over, for almost 6 months there was no service center available in Trivandrum and customers were asked to go to service centers around 200kms away for warranty related repairs.

While this was already a sad state of affairs, I was not expecting this kind of fraud by the group. The owner of this dealership is a part of a big group of companies. It's sad that they can hide behind a shut down brand and cheat people. The customer did not go to the dealership to book the car, rather she was directed to the dealership by Skoda's customer service. Moreover, on raising an issue with the customer care regarding the delay in delivery, Skoda continued to claim that they would resolve the issue, but then claimed that they have no responsibility.

Unfortunately, after all this the best case scenario would be a refund and we would read headlines saying consumer court asks company to pay 14 lakhs and legal fees. What we do not realize here, is that in these big headlines, often the court only gives a refund. The amount of mental agony suffered by the customer is rarely compensated. This customer wanted to buy the car while her mother was sick, as a last wish kind of thing, now her mother has passed away and she is struggling to get her money back. All her time and mental peace would never be compensated.

[StarrySky]

It seems she is not alone. She mentions that there are around 35 people who are in similar situation as hers. At least one of them has commented on the video as well.

Another has commented that he was saved because he was offered a switch from an automatic to a manual variant that was in stock.

In the video, the lady mentioned that before the dealership closed, an executive from the dealership had advised her to cancel her booking because there would be "delays". Looking back, she thinks the executive may have been trying to save her before the dealership closed.

[ferrarirules]

I really feel for the person who got cheated but I don't think Skoda is at fault here. If the dealership (registered company by itself) took money and didn't send pay it to Skoda to get cars. This means that the fraud was committed by the dealer still taking money from customers despite in process of closing shop.

All Skoda can do in this case is say that the dealer didn't make any payment to them and state this in the courts. The errant company (dealer) needs to be taken to court to return the money that they have taken in the pretext of delivering cars but none were delivered against the same.

[ike]

Originally Posted by LakeWalker

Also note that Malayalam Group has other businesses and they have a lot of Tata Motors dealerships as well. So beware of this fraud company.

A few of Malayalam Tata dealerships were taken over by Luxon, I also heard in the Harrier WhatsApp group that they are closing others too.

[Asish_VK]

Saw this interview 2 days back. Feel sorry for the customer, especially this involved sentiments related to her mother's health and demise too.

My respect to Baiju N Nair increased multiple folds for showing this to the public. His "rapid fire" videos in his youtube channel is also very good, where customers speak about their cars and experiences (including service experience).

[Elevate2024]

Originally Posted by ferrarirules

I really feel for the person who got cheated but I don't think Skoda is at fault here. If the dealership (registered company by itself) took money and didn't send pay it to Skoda to get cars. This means that the fraud was committed by the dealer still taking money from customers despite in process of closing shop.

The dealerships are selected by Skoda, if customer approaches Skoda, they ask the customer to deal with the dealership and the customer service of Skoda has been communicating with the customer even after dealership closure, I don't see why and how Skoda can escape blame from this.

Cases like these will cause reputational damage to the brand with no damage to the dealership. Moreover, there would have been some kind of security bond which Skoda would/should have taken from the dealer while giving the contract. Though, in court case Skoda will get away and the dealer would be pulled up after a long legal battle, Skoda can easily take the case on itself and compensate the customers and relieve them of the agony they have been through due to this dealer and save itself the bad rep its going to generate and make it a PR story for itself. For sure the marketing costs would be far lesser then the compensation amount for Skoda and the money would be recovered in the legal battle anyways.
Heck they can make this emotional story of the customer their ad-campaign to make it a customer first brand and turn the angry customer to their advert hero

[MRSTONES]

The legal position will be that the liability or the fraud created by dealer in the name of Skoda, (booking, repair etc.) Will also be a responsibility of Skoda as they were the authorised dealer.

Also once the dealership was discontinued and advertised, the Skoda responsibility will cease for new transactions.

[Vikash Kumawat]

Very rare case, one more case where a Middle Class struggling among A brand, Slow Courts and a Rich dealership, I hope she will get her money/car at the earliest with a compensation

[ferrarirules]

Originally Posted by Elevate2024

The dealerships are selected by Skoda, if customer approaches Skoda, they ask the customer to deal with the dealership and the customer service of Skoda has been communicating with the customer even after dealership closure, I don't see why and how Skoda can escape blame from this.

You have missed one key point - The dealership was on the way to closure. If the dealer committed fraud with customers by taking booking and payment for the car when they knew that their contract with Skoda was ending. This is purely fraud done by the dealer. All Skoda can do is support the customer in the legal case against the dealer.

I will give you an example - You are in the market to buy a Samsung TV. You come to my shop which is a authorized dealer for selling the TV. I take the money from you to deliver the TV but in the meanwhile my Samsung dealership was cancelled and I shut shop. Now how will Samsung be responsible for your money, when I didn't get any product from Samsung to deliver or paid money to Samsung to get the TV. The money for taken by me in my account. Why will Samsung return you your money? Will you not take it up with me to return the money back? Will Samsung not say that no money was for paid for the TV to them so they cannot pay the money back or provide a TV?

Just replace Samsung with Skoda and TV with Car in above story and hope it will make sense. Yes it is Skoda and yes there have been horror stories with them. But in this case, I don't see a way how they are complicit in this?

[faust]

Originally Posted by Rajjaiswal92

Skoda and their dealerships are pathetic, i can fully understand what she must be going through, but not even a bit surprised.
Skoda and their dealership were involved in a major RTO scam in my city as well, they somehow end up taking no responsibility at all.
The court will most likely go after the dealership, the civil suit will drag on for years but most likely end up in her favour.

It appears that their service centers are pathetic as well.

A family friend had a Fabia with which he had a good experience.
Based on that he bought a Kushaq and after a couple of years he ended up driving on a water logged street in heavy rain.
The car stopped and had to be towed to the nearest service center.

They quickly formed a Whatsapp group to provide updates. This is the only action that they took swiftly.
There was no urgency in repairing the car and they took their time in testing and identifying faulty parts. I believe each part was ordered from Pune.
Then came the problem with 3rd party insurance. They don't seem to have any interest in following up with the provider, instead shifting the onus on the owner.

As of now the car is sitting in the service center since 90 days and any query on the Whatsapp group is not being responded to.

The owner is a very busy person and it is difficult for him to physically be present at the service center each time for an update. He is using other cars at his disposal to get by.

[AtheK]

Another case of common man in India having very few laws to protect them, all we are supposed to pay taxes and just live on our lives without expecting anything in return.

I feel so sorry for this person, specially seeing the emotional angle involved, I hope she gets a speedy resolution and at least get her money back.